Three important messages:
The crisis is no longer local - every sport in every country is reporting the same four problems.
The solution is no longer contested - fun, friends, families, experience. The research is in and it’s growing.
The hard part was never knowing what to do. It’s making it work where you are.
I’ve travelled around the world working in sport for a long, long time.
Professional football codes.
Olympic sports.
Community clubs in towns you’ve never heard of.
And for most of those years, the genuinely interesting part of the job was the differences.
Australia had problems that England didn’t have.
Canada had problems the United States didn’t have.
South Africa was at one point in its sporting evolution, New Zealand was at another and Asia was different to Europe.
Different countries. Different stages of sports system development. Different conversations.
Not any more, my friends.
Convergence: four problems, every sport, every country:
Everywhere it’s the same:
The number of kids in organised competitive sport is falling - in spite of population growth.
The dropout rate between junior sport and the start of high school - ages 10, 11, 12 - is very high. The dropout rate again in the mid to late teens is very high.
Every sport on earth is struggling to gain, train and retain coaches, officials and volunteers.
And the cost - the cost has become ridiculous. In some football codes parents are paying five - ten thousand dollars a year or more for their kids to play youth sport.
Ten thousand dollars!!! For youth sport!
I’m having the same discussion with touch football that I’m having with rugby.
Same conversation with swimming as I have with triathlon, with tennis, with rugby league.
Same conversation everywhere. Sport is in crisis globally.
Response: everybody is turning the same way at the same time:
Here’s what’s fascinating.
We’ve all landed on the same diagnosis. The performance pathway, implemented at young ages, hasn’t worked. (I’ve been saying that for twenty years and it’s now close to consensus).
And we’ve all landed on roughly the same prescription for change:
Sport should be fun.
Delay specialisation where we can.
Take the heat out of early high-level competition - minimise the significance of junior rep teams.
Build community around clubs. Embrace families and parents rather than treating them as a nuisance.
Support coaches and volunteers so they actually enjoy the experience and stay.
We are shifting from performance-focused sport to experience-focused sport.
Same problems everywhere. Same solutions everywhere. Bizarre, really - but good in a lot of ways too.
Pushback: the three most expensive words in sport:
Now here’s the real issue.
The sports and the governments trying to introduce sport for fun, sport for experience, sport for relationships, are copping serious pushback.
From clubs. From private operators. From every stakeholder with something invested in the way we do it now.
And the pushback almost always arrives in the same shape.
“Yeah, that might be true. It might be about fun and enjoyment. The world might be moving...but it’s different in our club.”
“It wouldn’t work in our club”.
“It wouldn’t work in our sport”.
“It’s different in our country, we do things differently here”.
Seen it all, my friends. Seen it in a dozen countries just in the past year.
Evolution: it’s coming, just slower than you want:
So if you’re the progressive, innovative thinker in your club - (and I don’t mean progressive in the political sense) - and you can see what’s happening and you want to move....
Don’t expect everyone to jump on the sports experience bandwagon immediately.
Don’t expect anyone to say, “wow, you were right and we were wrong and we’re all going your way now”. It’s not going to happen.
It’s going to be a progressive evolution, not the revolution you think it needs to be.
But it’s coming.
Summary:
There’s a great line that goes - it’s no good coming up with a great solution to the wrong problem.
We don’t have that excuse any more.
We know what the problems are.
We know what the solutions are. The research is sitting right there in front of us.
All that’s left is making it work.
That is the real key.
Three Practical Applications For Your Coaching:
Name the four problems out loud at your next club meeting. Falling numbers, early dropout, teen dropout, no coaches, unaffordable cost. Half the pushback you get comes from people who’ve never had the problems stated as a set.
Expect the pushback and plan for it, don’t take it personally. “It’s different in our club” is not an argument, it’s a comfort. Have one small, visible, low-risk change ready that people can see working inside a season.
Decide where you sit - and decide this year. Sport is going through a period of radical transformation. Drifting is a decision too and it’s the only one that gets made for you.
So tell me in the comments - whereabouts are you as a club, as a coach, as a sport?
Where are you with sport for fun, sport for enjoyment, sport for the experience?
And what pushback are you getting?
Thanks for reading, listening and watching.
Wayne
If you want the toolkit for actually making this work - not the theory, the how - it’s in The Coaching Course Sport Needs Now. Seven modules, built for real coaches with real time pressures.
https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow
And if you’re a parent watching your kid navigate all of this - Raising Athletes (includes The Talent Myth book).
https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/raisingathletes
